Dear President Trump:

I’m writing to you today to encourage you to give up on the idea of a border wall and reopen government. Two weeks ago government funding stopped for several departments out of dispute over funding your promise to build a wall along our southern border.

All presidential candidates make promises that, once they are elected, recognize they can’t keep. Famously President Obama promised to close the detention center at Guantanamo.

And let’s face it: you have your own broken promises. Eleven times on the campaign trail you promised to jail Hilary Clinton. You also criticized President Obama for playing golf while on the job and promised not to do the same.

I could go on, but that’s not the point. Now that you’re President you need to recognize that building the wall will not stop illegal immigration. It will cost a great deal of money and won’t do what it’s supposed to do.

Simply put, Mr. Trump, we all recognize that this is one campaign promise your base cares about. But your base has never been the majority of Americans and most of us oppose the wall.

You need to stop worrying about losing your base and start leading our nation. And you need to stop making federal employees hostages of your fear. Employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and the United States Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration (among others) are currently working without pay. They are praying that they won’t lose their homes, that their credit ratings won’t suffer, and that their children won’t lose necessary services.

Mr. Trump I understand that your corporations have declared bankruptcy at least four times. But all of these bankruptcies were corporate and did not cost you anything personally. No matter what happened to your employees your home in Trump Tower remained safe.

This won’t be true for federal employees who suffer from your fear of losing your base. I pray none of them will need to declare bankruptcy but if they do, you will not pay any price for their pain or their future.

I have no confidence that you will suddenly develop a moral compass but I will never stop praying for the people you are hurting.